Insurance Professionals' Perceptions of Continuing Education Requirements

Most states require continuing education courses as a condition for maintaining an insurance license. While numerous studies on the effectiveness of continuing education have been done in other professions, there is a great scarcity of such studies in the insurance industry. For this article, we surveyed 987 insurance license holders on their attitudes toward the effectiveness of continuing education and the factors governing their selection of courses. We found that despite the mandate to attend, the vast majority of respondents thought that continuing education provided them with the knowledge necessary to meet customer needs, increased their understanding of their professional responsibilities, raised the public reputation of the industry, improved the professional conduct of agents, and improved the quality of their advice to consumers. This study is significant in that it is amongst the first empirical investigations of the effectiveness of insurance continuing education programs. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]